Ukraine calls on OSCE to increase mission’s budget in Donbas

Ukraine has called for strengthening technical capabilities of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission for round-the-clock monitoring, ensuring a reasonable increase in the budget of the Mission.

Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the International Organizations in Vienna, Yevhen Tsymbaliuk, stated this at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council on January 16, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

“The monitoring of security situation at night remains particularly problematic. For security reasons, ground patrols cannot freely move in the territories of Donbas occupied by Russia, which undermines the Mission’s ability to monitor ceasefire violations. However, about 55% of such violations are recorded at night, as reported by the SMM, primarily by SMM cameras and monitoring officers deployed at advanced patrol bases. If we want to provide comprehensive round-the-clock surveillance, we must strengthen the technical capabilities of the Mission for this," he said.

In this regard, the Ukrainian delegation stressed the need to ensure a reasonable increase in resources for the next SMM budget, which should be adopted until the end of March.

“We hope that the participating states will allow this to happen,” Tsymbaliuk added.

The Ukrainian diplomat also emphasized the importance of ensuring the free and safe movement of OSCE observers in the occupied areas of Donbas.